Crackdown on Fallon farms causes problems for wetlands

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999 | 10:57 a.m.

Massie and Mahala sloughs on either side of U.S. 50 near Hazen used to be a 2,000-acre oasis, swarming with thousands of ducks and shorebirds. But since the late 1980s, the interconnected sloughs have so little water that few fall migrating birds bother to stop.

Several weeks ago, only two of five large ponds at Massie Slough had enough water to float a duck. The only visitors were a handful of mallards and teals. The tules and nutgrass were as dry and brown as hay.

It's a little better in the spring, but not like it used to be, said Jim Hardison, member of the Desert Gun Club that owns land along Massie Slough.

"We used to have so much water that we intentionally dried up the ponds as a management tool, to allow unwanted vegetation to dry up," Hardison said. "Now we hang on to every drop we get."

Two unrelated events in the late 1980s hit the wetlands' water supply. The sloughs get water from two sources: drain water from farmers' fields in Fernley and Swingle Bench and ground water seeping from the Truckee Canal five miles away. The reclamation project created the sloughs.

But in 1987 the eight-year drought began and in 1988 Newlands Project farmers drastically reduced their diversions from the Truckee River after losing a big federal court battle. Before losing in court, some farmers used as much as two or three times the amount of water on their fields that they were entitled to take. They also irrigated fields that never had water rights.

"It's a dilemma for me because I'm a conservationist and I don't advocate wasting water," Hardison said. "But if you or I were to dry up a wetlands, the feds would force us to mitigate.

"They're circumventing their own laws."

Hardison has been bugging federal officials for several years to help get water to the sloughs but has been unsuccessful. The Nevada Waterfowl Association sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offering to contribute some money and provide manpower and materials to build a 2.6-mile-long pipe from the T-Line Canal, which leads out of Lahontan Reservoir, to Mahala Slough.

The Desert Gun Club now is negotiating with a nearby farmer to buy 26 acre-feet of water - a proverbial drop in the bucket. That's enough water to keep six acres wet. But it's a start, and it gives the club a little more political clout.

Federal officials say they are under no obligation to find another water supply for Massie and Mahala sloughs. If the feds were dredging and filling the wetlands, they would have to get a permit and rebuild them somewhere else. But the feds' say it's not against the law to dry up wetlands created from wasteful water practices.

Besides, federal officials say, they, along with the state, already are buying up water rights for wetlands at Stillwater, Carson Lake and Fallon Paiute Indian Reservation. The 1990 Truckee River Negotiated Settlement authorizes the federal government to purchase enough water rights to maintain 25,000 acres of wetlands in those three areas.

"For us it's a matter of priorities," said Bill Bettenberg, the U.S. Department of the Interior's coordinator for the Negotiated Settlement. "If we had everything taken care of at Stillwater and Carson Lake, we would have no great objection to taking some action at these other places.

"We're not half way there yet. At last look we had purchased 28,000 to 29,000 acre-feet. We need 75,000 acre-feet."

Massie and Mahala sloughs were left out of the Negotiated Settlement because negotiators didn't think enough water was available to go around, said Tina Nappe, who heads the Lahontan Wetlands Coalition.

"Certainly those wetlands are important," she said. "If I could save them all, I would."